To the naked eye, the photo above doesn't seem to show anything more than a couple of bland houses against a deary landscape. But a prominent nuclear-weapons researcher thinks it might display the concealment of Iran's nuclear program. All this over a few water stains.[top]

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The site on display is Parchin, a military base in Iran. The nuclear watchdogs in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have twice been rebuffed from conducting inspections at the base this year. The IAEA's concern is that Iran is performing "detonations relevant to a potential nuclear-weapon development effort" at Parchin, as Global Security Newswire puts it.

But the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based think tank, partnered with the satellite imagery company DigitalGlobe to snap the photo last month. The main white building is the facility where the IAEA suspects detonation work may have taken place. But it's the black lines dribbling from the right side of the building that gives the institute concern.

Water, of course, is not proof of a nuclear weapons program. There is a fair amount of circumstantial, incomplete evidence suggesting Iran is at least tiptoeing up to the edge of an atomic bomb program. But this is not, to borrow a phrase, a smoking gun that might come in the form of a super-soaker.

The pictures come at a crucial time for the Iranian nuclear program. After months of diplomatic acrimony, Teheran has responded to international sanctions by opening the door to a new round of negotiations. Diplomats from Iran, China, Germany, the United States, Russia, Britain and France will meet on May 23 in Baghdad to see if there's a peaceful way of resolving the international community's questions about the nuclear program. Figuring out what Iran scrubbed when it gave Parchin a bath might be part of that parley.